Infrastructures for the poor: a genealogical view from the ordering of ‘native’ settlements to slum upgrade programs

Keywords: infrastructures, informal settlements, urban improvement programs, global models
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

This presentation examines three models of urban improvement programs advocated by agencies such as the World Bank or UN Habitat, what we can also coin as ‘global models for local infrastructures’, in the specific places of implementation in the city of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau in the past three decades, to discuss the way the provision of urban ameliorations shapes the relationship of individuals with the state.
Focusing on the slum upgrade program PMBB-Plano de Melhoramentos dos Bairros de Bissau, in the Cupilum neighbourhood; on a post-war house reconstruction project in Belém and Quélélé; and finally on a Sites & Services scheme developed at Antula Bono by a partnership between the Bissau City Council and UNDP (United Nations Development Program), it also reflects on the links such programs have to colonial histories of social and urban segregation, when the majority of city dwellers were classified as ‘natives’ or ‘indigenous’. The presentation discusses the way the improvement models for developing countries in postcolonial times still shy away from the universalist urban development models of early 20th century European and North American cities, and how they move the subjectivity of recipients from that of the citizen to that of the urban services customer.